


The Heart and the Mind

by orphan_account



Category: James Bond (Movies), Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 007 John Watson, Action/Adventure, Bond!lock, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, No Character Death, Oops I pulled a Moffat, Quartermaster Sherlock, Romance, Water Torture, borrowing the Skyfall Universe, just for a while, the Final Problem and Scandal themes, violence that kinda comes with a bondverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 20:43:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of a terrorist attack on Britain that has left the Prime Minister dead and the Royal family in hiding, Quartermaster Sherlock Holmes is left with the impossible task of recovering the hard drive of information that started the whole situation while simultaneously trying to stay alive as a marked man.</p>
<p>Agent 007 John Watson is on the run, hunted with a price on his head as well, a relic from a crumbling republic. He has no orders anymore; all his contacts are dead, all headquarters burned to the ground. He’s all alone in a world that has plunged into chaos.</p>
<p>By way of chance they meet, a brain and a heart, and what starts as a shaky alliance builds into something more. Something illogical and something compromising, but perhaps that’s what makes it worth the while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In which Q is Sherlock and 007 is John.

_Dust. Rubble. Air—he needs air—darkness._

The London Headquarters had been bombed. One moment Sherlock had been yelling at the multitude of assistants he was in charge of—idiots, all of them—and then next he was flat on his back, computer cracked over his chest, breathing in the dust and watching as the ceiling seemed to crumble and cave, darkness coming in great spots in his vision until he was completely dead to the world.

That’s all he remembers, no warning, no alarm, but suddenly he’s within a darkened alleyway, one of the secret entrances to the underground command center. He breathes heavily for a moment, eyes scanning the brick walls and night sky filled with stars until he gathers his considerable wits and finds the will to sit up. And realizes he’s not alone. Next to him, scared looking and pale is one of the newer assistants, a girl just fresh from college, brilliant but completely shy, to the point of uselessness in Sherlock’s prior opinion. 

He’ll remember never to think like that again.

Because if his logic is correct, and it is, more than likely, correct, she is the one who dragged him up through collapsed doors and three flights of stairs into the alley they’re in now. Her name is Molly, he remembers, checking the mental files he has of everybody he works with, Molly Hooper, and she has just saved his life.

Gratefulness is not something Sherlock Holmes is accustomed to, but he feels the emotion creeping along the edges of his mind. He replaces it with respect. A much more advantageous feeling, in his opinion.

Nevertheless, the first word out of his mouth is a hoarse “ _Thank you,”_ dust still trapped and uncomfortable in his throat.

Ignoring her fearful gasping and quick nod he quickly scans the area again from his new vantage point and grimly notes in the distance the cloud of dust and rubble that has no doubt traveled from his ruined headquarters. The headquarters of MI–6. 

The shock that he had kept at bay till now slowly seeps into him, his breath catching and composure slipping ever so slightly, because all that he has known for the last five years is suddenly dust and ruin, and he still has no idea how.

“What happened, Molly?” he asks sharply, voice quiet nonetheless. They’re both slightly bloody, he notes, but nothing prominently fatal has befallen either of them.

His assistant startles, surprise flickering over her face although at the moment Sherlock cannot care to deduce the cause. 

“The-the headquarters must have been bombed. I didn’t—I was just coming into the main room when it happened and when everything had settled I—I dragged you out of the west escape route and to here.”

Her voice is quick and breathy, a second from passing out Sherlock notes.

“You dragged me out? What of the others, Anderson, Lestrade?” 

A shadow passes over Molly’s pale face and she seems to visibly shrink, tears pooling at the edges of her eyes. “I d–didn’t see much of anything but the big concrete slab fixture fell and there was–there was so much _blood_ I don’t” a sob escapes, and she tugs at her lab coat in frustration. “I think they’re all dead.” she whispers, tears streaming. “You were lying a few feet away by the directors board, away from the collapsed ceiling, and I just–I just wanted to save whoever I could.”

She’s a sobbing pile of tears by the time her recount is done but Sherlock can feel respect building within him even as he takes in all the new data, brain running miles ahead. He makes an awkward gesture, patting her back. “You did… well. Thank you again.”

He helps her up and they limp out into the street, keeping in the cover of the shadows as sirens scream in the distance and they walk, not knowing that at this very moment their lives are crumbling, that their bomb was just the beginning.

 

*****

The next morning sees Sherlock sitting in a darkened, cramped café, sipping coffee that makes him cringe, wrapped up in his belfast coat and favorite scarf.

He had sent Molly off to her boyfriend’s house in the dead of the night, parting with awkward thank you’s and expressions that told of fear and anticipation and confusion. He had snuck into his flat on Baker street and collected his coat, gun, and some money before coming here to see the news on the bombing, trying to gather all the data to see whether he should try and check into MI–5 now that MI–6 is unreachable.

And then the TV screen flickers up above and the breaking news isn’t that MI–6 headquarters bave been bombed, the news is the assassination of the Prime Minister, consecutive bombing of MI-6, MI-5, the House of Parliament, and a smattering of other official buildings that Sherlock can’t pick up at the moment because he’s frozen with his coffee cup suspended halfway to his lips, brilliant mind running in desperate circles.

_Royal family in hiding._

_Prime Minister—dead._

_MI–5, MI–6, all bombed._

_Innumerable government agents dead._

_Terrorist cells closing in_.

Sherlock had never entertained thoughts of a ridiculous apocalypse, but perhaps he should have, because he knows, in that little dingy café, that the world is about to change.

He drops his coffee precariously on the table and walks almost mechanically out into the street, finally noticing all the details he’d missed in all his exhaustion and shock, the fearful whispering of crowds in the streets, closed blinds, and the _sirens_ , surrounding him, the remnants of a government system still trying to shuffle along.

How many of them are there left? He’s the Quartermaster and he survived, but what about M? What of the domestic affairs? And how the _hell_ had everybody, including _himself_ , missed this>

He ducks into a back street and keeps out of the way because now there’s no doubt a damn target on his back, mind racing so fast and hard that he almost disregards his phone ringing. The tone is shrill and classical, designed to bring him out of his deep thought state.

“Hello? Q speaking.” 

The voice on the other end is none other than his dear brother.

He sounds slightly muffled and a hair less composed as usual. “Hello, Sherlock.”

“Brother dearest.” he replies dryly. He should have expected this.

“I’m glad to see your still up and talking after this recent… event. I’m afraid you shouldn’t be out in the general public at the moment though. A morning coffee out is completely out of the question.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes at the slight condescension in Mycroft’s tone. “I’ve realized so much. Now where am I to be now? My entire division is, for the most part, dead.”

“I’m afraid you can’t be checking in anywhere. I am calling because you’ve been appointed to retrieve a certain… hard drive of information that seems to have started this entire mess.”

The backstreet he’s walking in meets a cross section up ahead. Upon glancing at the group of giggling teenagers heading down on street, he quickly ducks in the opposite direction, trying to gather his thoughts.

“And this hard drive… holds some compromising information?” his mind is already scanning through the possibilities. Only last month their top field agent, that 007 person, had retrieved a hard drive containing the identities of more than a few undercover agents. He remembered meeting him, giving him a signature gun. 

“We’re promised it can start scandals and wars to topple the whole world. A bit was released and, well, you can see what happened.”

Sherlock nods even though it’s a pointless gesture, trying to see where he should be heading. “And I am to do this… how? I’m the Quartermaster, I send agents on this sort of thing, I don’t send myself.”

Mycroft’s tone made Sherlock glare. “Dear brother if you are half the Quartermaster you’re known to be you’ll be more than capable. I’d head back home if I were you as well, 221B will be unreachable by tomorrow morning. You’re lucky, you aren’t the terrorist cell’s first priority.”

“I suppose you are, then?” he rounds yet another corner with Baker St. in mind, his mental map of London at work.

He can almost hear Mycroft’s dry smile. “No need to worry about me, brother. All the information, location and such will be wired to you and waiting in that flashy computer you have in your flat. I’m afraid you won’t be hearing from anyone in the ranks for a quite a while. There’s a crisis upon us.”

Sherlock ends the call in the next moment. 

Baker Street and Mrs. Hudson are waiting for him as always, with the latter fussing around Sherlock like a mother hen. She’s one of the few people in his life privy to the secret of his actual occupation (else he was a ‘consulting detective’) and had, apparently, thought he was dead. The news is blaring in her flat as well as up in his, simultaneous reports of the bombings and assassinations, the riots in the streets and chaos as the entire British government falls to pieces. 

He picks up laptop, black and not flashy in the slightest, and quickly pulls up the files Mycroft had, true to his word, wired over. Mrs. Hudson is scurrying about, making tea and biscuits and generally fussing around.

Sherlock brings up file after file at lightning speed, eyes scanning everything into his photographic memory. This had been decades in the making… infiltration of top agents implanted into britain as school children. Multiple moles that had managed to hack into the main MI-6 and MI-5 databases, effectively giving Sherlock the Quartermaster and the rest of them any reason to anticipate the attack. These were multiple terrorist cells and they were working together, just trying to acquire a single hard drive.

The next set of files details the item of interest, the thing that could start wars and topple countries apparently. All the details are quite vague but from what is given Sherlock can only assume whoever could accumulated it all had been long since taken care of.

It’s now currently under the jurisdiction of a freelance criminal mastermind, James Moriarty, kept alternatively with him and his associate, none other than Irene Adler, one of the only people who’d ever bested him. 

Sherlock recalls clearly The Women who had toppled his great plans to hack into the mainframe of some large overseas corporation because he’d been _bored_ , subsequently putting him on the radar of MI-5, and by default MI-6. Somewhere along the way his brilliance had been recognized and he was now Quartermaster, so perhaps he should thank her for getting him caught, that is, if he were a person to thank people often. That is, unless they were saving his life, which up until yesterday hadn’t been much of an issue.

The hard drive itself was in the form of a simple camera phone, password protected with a hundred little failsafes and self destruct mechanisms, although Sherlock is confident he could crack the damn thing if he could get his hands on it.

And that seemed to be the greatest problem then, acquiring this camera phone. With the British government flailing and under attack he seriously doubted he’d get much help on that end. Not to mention he probably has a big bounty on his head for being Q, and the fact that he had abandoned all underworldly connections upon joining the world of espionage.

He was completely alone, and he had a heist to pull. His best shot would no doubt be to try and intercept the phone while it was in transit to Irene Adler, but still then he didn’t have a team of any sort, not even a partner. There was no feasible way to steal this particular thing by means of technology solely, and that had been his entire job.

Mycroft must be desperate.

It was with this last, depressing thought that Sherlock emerged from his laptop and to the world, shaking his head in slight confusion because it seemed quite _dark_ all of a sudden.

Oh of course. He had thought himself into a stupor again, and an entire day had gone by. It seemed he had been multitasking again as well, because he had managed to hack into Moriarty’s email account while sustaining a completely different thought process. To be honest though, he was slightly disappointed. He must have been thinking quite deeply, because if he had been focused he could have brought down a great deal of the world in the time he had spent mulling over the facts.

The clock read 8:47 pm, and Sherlock remembered his talk with Mycroft.

_221B will be unreachable by tomorrow morning._

His flat was no longer safe. 

Gathering a small bundle of clothes, gadgets he had taken home and his documents into a suitcase he quickly inventoried the contents of his flat, burning all things compromising. By the time he was done the flat belonged to Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective who talked to skulls and was a good associate with the DI Lestrade, enthusiastic in chemistry and violins but in no way connected to computers and espionage. To be put simply, it was his flat from five years ago.

After making sure Mrs. Hudson was well and safe with her sister he turned away and walked into the night, settling down in a small motel around Cardiff. Tomorrow he would head back into London and see what he could do.

 

*****

 

John Watson was not a man easily shaken.

He had been shot too many times to count, tortured and drowned, so he considered his fear factor considerably high.

Fear, of course, was different from shock, and nothing is quite as shocking as seeing the HQ of MI-6 get blown up, and then hearing that the rest of the British Government isn’t doing so well either. 

Nevertheless, after he had dusted off his suit and retrieved his gun he had turned away and walked, not looking back. That being said it could be argued that he hadn’t looked back because he was too busy being shot at by the terrorist cell that had been charged with eliminating the 00’s.

He was now on the run, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that _everyone_ was unreachable, that he was now the top agent of an agency that was bloody rubble in a street, serving a country on the brink of apocalypse.

John Watson found the closest safe house he had, a personal one, not the agency’s, and waited for days. Days of the TV running twenty four seven, of weapons being cleaned and bottles being emptied far too often while he witnessed the empire crumble from the small LCD screen.

A week after the consecutive bombings, with no news of the whereabouts of the royal family and parliament desperately trying to instill order in a panicking country being overrun by terrorist attacks, John found that he was ready to kill anything that moved out of sheer frustration.

It took a lot to rile up this particular 00 agent. He was known for his calm disposition, his clinical and cold way of getting the job done even as he showed a remarkable amount of morality and loyalty to the country. 

In the end though it wasn’t the frustration that drew him out of hiding. It was the complete lack of milk in the fridge.

It was irrational, stubborn and possibly stupid but John wanted his proper cup of tea, and if he was just going to stand by and watch the country fall he was going to do it in comfort. He highly doubted that Tesco’s was even open, or any supermarket for that matter but he still stalked out with his ‘personal statement’ of a gun, and wad of cash.

It was this small little mission, this stubborn need for milk that led to the imminent disaster.

He had just rounded the corner of Baker St., Tesco’s in sight when he was confronted with a smattering of screaming, fleeing civilians and a small group of armed men surrounding one curly haired man who was holding what appeared to be a computer, on his knees and facing several guns.

His gun was out and all but one of the men were dead by the time John’s brain even registered that he recognized the man on the ground. The last man was slow to pull out his gun, an older man than the others had been, and it clattered to the ground seconds later as he toppled over, knees cracking as he was hit hard with the side of a black computer. John put a bullet in him moments later.

The person who had been kneeling just moments ago stood up to a considerable height, towering over John in a familiar way. It was none other than Q, who’d made the very gun he was carrying.

“007.” Q said, his voice the same low timbre. 

John was considerably confused, eyeing the men he had just killed. “What the bloody hell is going on, Q?”

The Quartermaster glared at him with vivid eyes, computer tucked under his arm. “You just killed my one lead, that’s what’s going on.” he quipped.

John had already been in a bad mood, now he sheathed his gun in an almost menacing manner and glared into those unnerving eyes.

“Lead for what? What the hell is going on?” he asked again, following as Sherlock retreated into a darkened alleyway, away from prying eyes. “I’ve had no contact whatsoever. It’s as if the entire divisions fallen.”

“It has,” Q snapped, glancing around. “Look, I’ve had enough trouble as it is with this. Thank you for saving my life, but I can’t be babysitting—” 007 watched as his eyes widened and went glassy like he was somewhere else. After a minute of this, as John was tempted to knock his gun on his head to see whether he’d react, Q’s gaze snapped back to his face. “Actually, I could. As your Quartermaster I am going to need your help on this particular… problem I’ve been put up to.” his face twisted into an ironic smirk, looking the part of the plotting genius he was known to be. 

As to the ‘problem’, John had no second thoughts. He, the top field agent of the 00’s, was not going to sit this one out. “I’ll do it. Now just explain to me what it is.”


	2. Close Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Irene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D

After their rather strenuous meeting next to Tesco’s, they had rendezvoused to Q’s own safe house, an apparent underground replica of his flat in central London where he had explained most of everything; Moriarty and Adler, the camera phone, the terrorist cells, and how John had just killed Moriarty’s right hand man Sebastian Moran, who Q had been trying to bug when he’d been caught in the act of snooping in the apartment Moran had been staying at, supervising the downfall of the two HQ’s.

The Quartermaster still seemed a bit miffed at John’s actions and John, in turn, was annoyed that he seemed to be missing the part where he _saved Q’s bloody life_. The man himself was sitting oddly, cradling a gun in his hands, perched on top of an armchair and alternating from states of deep ignorance and times where he’d shoot the wall and startle his new ally into almost drawing his own weapon. After maybe an hour of this, John decided to intervene.

“You know, if we’re going to be working together, I might as well know your name.” 

Q gave no indication of hearing him, addressing the hole filled wall. “You are agent John Hamish Watson, 007, recently commissioned to Shanghai, China to retrieve a hard drive of classified undercover field agents. You are known for your fondness of tea and short dalliances with women on every one of your missions, although you are bisexual. You have one sister, Harriet, who is gay and recently divorced with her wife Clara. Your family thinks you’re an army doctor in Afghanistan at the moment. You’re good friends with Michael Stamford in weapons development in the Q division. John, I _made_ the file on you.”

Q had said this all at a blinding but comprehensive speed, his expression bored the entire time. John was surprised even though he’d already known Q had his life story; it was Q’s job to know basically everything and since John was 007, he was already well within the Quartermaster’s radar.

John shuffled in his seat and set down his mug of tea. “Yes, I know that. But I do remember saying _your_ name.”

Q finally looked at him for a moment, calculating and stiff, and just when John was about to give up and leave the room, the Quartermaster sighed, running a hand through thick curls. 

“Sherlock. My name is Sherlock Holmes.”

John sat back and committed that to memory, the name sounding vaguely familiar, and watched as his Quartermaster went back to thinking and typing and shooting, fitting the name to the person. Sherlock Holmes. He’d never actually been in the presence of Q for more than a few minutes, wheh they’d trade gadgets and banter and formal titles. He’d only seen a small mask of who the Quartermaster was, black suits and curls and sharp eyes. So he added extreme irritability and deep thought to his mental image of Sherlock Holmes, and his uncanny ability to deduce everything from a single glance. He’d heard about this quirk of the latest Q but had never had it done to him (it had certainly been a shock when Sherlock had mentioned off-handedly that he’d stayed a night in Cardiff as well).

_”How the hell did you know I’d been in Cardiff?”_

_”Quite obvious, honestly.”_

A couple hours later, approaching midnight, while John had been readying to sleep in the spare bedroom of the safe house, there was a muffled shout of, “ _Yes,_ ” from the living room that had him poking his head in, hair still wet from a shower. 

Sherlock was still perched on his armchair, his body long and lithe and _not the point._

John’s mental tirade was interrupted by Sherlock’s excited voice. “Belgravia, it’s just like the last time,”

“Hold up a minute. What are you going on about? Belgravia, London?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes minutely, hopping down from the chair to tap at his computer on the desk, presenting the screen with an exaggerated flourish. It was a blue veined map of London, a green, pulsing beacon at the sight of an address within Belgravia. It meant absolutely nothing to John. 

“Is that a lead? Do you think the hard drive is hidden there?” John felt stupid again. He wished for a moment that there was something to shoot at so at least he’d be of good use, and then remembered dejectedly that Q was known for his impeccable aim as well. 

Sherlock was pacing around the room, plugging in things to his laptop and pressing keys until the wall opposite John blinked into a matching map. One of his bloody walls was an LCD.

“I had a bit of a run in with Irene Adler a couple years ago. Five to be exact.” Sherlock started, pulling up different windows on the screen, pictures of a fancy white estate and a pretty woman John could only imagine was Irene Adler. The number tickled something in John’s brain.

“Five years… you became Q five years ago.” John realized, staring at Sherlock for confirmation.

The Quartermaster looked impressed and John felt irrationally proud. “Yes I did. I’m afraid I owe some of it to Irene Adler, as she’s the one who reported me to the officials after all.”

He tried to imagine what kind of things Sherlock would have been up to five years ago, what could have gotten MI–6’s attention. Seeing as he had the potential to bury half the world with a computer nowadays, John didn’t really want to know. Q had continued on with his monologue.

“This is where she lived back then. I’ll hazard that she still resides there on occasion. There’s no way to know what Moriarty’s up to until further notice and all my contacts are… not in the best shape at the moment but I’ve managed to pick up surveillance in the area and she appeared to be on a street nearby… yesterday, an hour before the bomb went off at HQ.”

Right. The bomb. In all that had been going on, John had forgotten that Sherlock shared a headquarters with him. “About that, what happened down in the Q division?”

Sherlock’s hand stilled over the keys, his expression darkening. “I have good reason to believe my entire team is dead with the exception of the ones sorting things out on the field and one of my assistants in the lab."

"You weren't in the headquarters at the time?" Odd, since Q rarely left the premises.

Q's voice was quiet when he answered. "The assistant I know is alive dragged me out through an escape route. Our entire ceiling collapsed with the exception of the metal beams overlooking the presentation panel."

"Oh." John said lamely, sitting down in a chair. "I think everyone was killed in my division above ground. Except for 003. He's out in the States right now. I don’t know about the other field agents."

Sherlock seemed to disregard this information, continuing his presentation with slightly less vigor. "I propose we pay Miss Adler a visit tomorrow. Quietly, of course, on the assumption that she hasn't forgotten my face. There's a nice little window in the back that is easily accessible from the balcony."

Keys clicked, and a 3D model of her house appeared, swiveling around to the back where he zoomed into a second story window right above a black fenced balcony.

"I'm afraid you'll have to bring only the walther for this operation. How are your acting skills?"

"Half of a mission is acting."

"Good." Q rubbed his hands together until they steepled to his lips, and John was once again reminded of an evil mastermind. "You'll be the diversion while I get in through the window. The last time I was there the laptop had been in the bedroom, although we must be wary of Kate—”

“Why do you know where her laptop is?” John interrupted, and Sherlock glared at him for the umpteenth time.

His voice was impatient and lightning fast when he answered. “She had many dealings with the corporations I was planning to hack five years ago and I broke into her house to copy over her entire computer’s data onto a drive. Quite like I’ll be doing tomorrow, except now I am better and I have an accomplice. I could have done it in moments, except _Kate_ her bloody housekeeping mistress had been cleaning and I was caught and handed over to MI–5 and MI-6 took a liking to me from there, although none of this is relevant to the _much_ more important task at hand so could you _please stop interrupting?”_

John nodded with slightly widened eyes, absorbing the information while the Quartermaster continued to ramble on about Kate the mistress answering doors and to make sure both were kept with John once he was inside and how weapons had to be concealed particularly well since Miss Adler was not only smart but grabby.

It took awhile to go to sleep that night.

 

*****

 

_007? John Watson. John?_

Before he was even half awake John had his Walther aimed at Sherlock’s head of curls, the man himself looming over John’s bedside, observing the business end of his weapon with a certain level of blasé.

“Is it a habit of your’s to shoot your superiors in the head?” Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow while simultaneously stepping back.

“Is it a habit of your’s to try and sneak up on a sleeping agents?” John countered in frustration, lowering his weapon.

The other man smirked and drew up his coat, turning to leave through the door. “I wasn’t sneaking up on you, I was attempting to wake you up. We need to get going now, it’s a quarter to nine.”

Once Q had left, his shoes clacking on the kitchen tiles, John dropped his face to his hands, groaning theatrically. If this was how his life was going to be from now on, bunking with the Quartermaster, he’d much rather just go and attack a terrorist cell head on. 

Twenty minutes later they were heading down some dank, shadowy back street in Sherlock’s black jaguar, trying to keep out of sight although the streets were greatly deserted, families hidden within their homes although the radio spoke of continued bombings and raids on stores as well as protests breaking out across the country. 

John switched the radio off once the commentator starting detailing the assassination of the hundredth time, turning to look at his new ally driving, the angles of his pale face a sharp contrast against the dark alley walls.

“I don’t understand, what are all these terrorist cells trying to do?”

Sherlock’s grip on the wheel seemed to tighten, although he remained otherwise visibly calm.

“They’re playing a game, trying to appeal to the king, to the man who holds the key.” he muttered, eyes straight ahead. “Moriarty’s been a person of interest in MI-5 and MI-6 for years, but he wields too much influence, the center of a web attached to almost every single criminal organization out there. Impossible to get to. And now he’s acquired the ultimate prize.”

“You think he’s selling to the highest bidder?” John asked, sinking back in his seat.

“The terrorist cells are all aiming for the same thing we are. They kill the Prime Minister. Bomb MI–6 HQ. Look at me, Moriarty, see what I’ve done.” 

Q’s voice had acquired an childish, mocking tone by the end of his explanation. 

There was only one thing John surmised from all of this. “So if we can eliminate the prize, or take it, this all stops.”

The little approving smile, like the one from last night appeared again for a second. “Most likely. With no motive, I trust they’ll see no reason to continue and waste money, and Myc–the agency will have recovered enough to deal with them. Cut of the head and the body flails.”

With this slip up, John’s suspicions were confirmed. 

“Your related to Mycroft Holmes, aren’t you? I knew I recognized the name, I worked for him on one—”

He was cut off, Sherlock’s tone annoyed. “‘He is my older brother. Keep in mind that all information you learn of me is highly classified, and that I have the means to erase you from the planet should you cross me.”

The threat was very real, although John couldn’t help but jump at it. “I’m their top agent. I’m sure M would have something to say about that.”

“Men who can pull triggers are not a rarity. I am one of the top six programmers in the world, and I have the means to do more damage than all of these idiotic terrorist cells combined. Give me half a day. See who M has more qualms over losing.”

John couldn’t help but smile at Sherlock’s tone, the aristocratic pride laced in everything he does. He was warming up to the fellow.

 

*****

 

Irene Adler’s house was white and grand looking, one in an entire street of similar looking structures. Sherlock had parked half a mile away, stepping around the car’s hood to face John before promptly punching the shorter man in the face.

If it had been any other situation he was sure he’d never be able to get away with it. The spy had been completely unprepared and surprise had been his only advantage. He was a hacker and programmer, not a trained killer like John, and no matter how many circles his mind could run around 007’s, it wouldn’t matter if they were actually in a fight. 

Which is why it was good, yet again, that John had been unprepared. 

Sherlock snatched away his Walther before John could shoot him, holding it high above his head in a way that might have been slightly cruel to the shorter man, who was at the moment attempting to attack him with hand-to-hand combat.

“007, calm _down_.” Sherlock hissed, backing away and narrowly dodging a fist.

“You just bloody _attacked me!_ I am not _calming down.”_ Contrary to his words though, the agent had lowered his arms slightly, stance wary.

“Would you have let me punch you if I had asked?”

“No.”

“Then this was necessary,” Sherlock answered, smug. John’s split lip was bleeding slightly, the blood smeared across his cheek as well. Good. “This is part of your cover. You were just attacked and you need them to open the door and call 999. If they have any courtesy at all they’ll also invite you inside as well, just as well in case I need aid.” 

John’s brain understood this plan, applauded it in fact, but it only helped to tamp down his anger so he didn’t kill Q on the spot. He certainly didn’t feel like _aiding_ him at the moment. 

Sherlock handed him back his gun and in moments the tails of his coat were rounding the corners.

John started heading in the opposite direction and then turned right as they had planned, heading to the front entrance of her house while Sherlock went for the back window. He started sprinting immediately, and by the time he reached the house he was genuinely out of breath, ringing the doorbell and gasping nonsense about being mugged.

_”Call the police, please, help me…”_

_“Of course sir, come in, we have a first aid kit in the bathroom…”_

He was led from the door into what appeared to be a living room, white walls and couch, a giant silver mirror above the mantel. Soon after, the lady who he didn’t recognize, who must be Kate returned with a phone and a red box.

While John was dabbing off the blood on his face, trying to be deliberately slow a woman entered who he remembered from the pictures, Irene Adler, dressed in a body hugging white dress, dark curls on her head reminding him for a moment of Sherlock. The first thing she did was sit across from him on the couch and lean over seductively. He brushed his hands down over where his gun was hidden.

If this had been a normal mission John would have flirted shamelessly, but now the entire damn country was alight and all he could think of was Sherlock, Q, climbing through a window upstairs and snooping around. He could hear Kate by the doorway, talking to the police, while Irene continued to eye his, her expression vixen like.

“A-are the police coming? They took–took my wallet and I–I think my cell unless I left it at home I…” John rambled on in fake nerves.

“The police are on their way,” Kate said, and the secret smile she shared with Irene just then was the first indication that something was very, very wrong.

The second one was a bit more obvious.

A couple minutes later, with all the blood off his face, a heavy thump from upstairs followed by shouting and gunshots. 

John was at the door in seconds, gun out and trained on the two women who appeared relaxed but unarmed. He inched away, the door only a few feet from him, ready to go bolting up the stairs when instead, people started coming down.

Two men in sharp suits to be exact, dragging a slightly bloody Quartermaster in between them, his jacket nowhere to be found and suit stained red. John felt himself turn cold, even as he shot down the man on the right and was about to do the same to the other when he raised his run to Sherlock’s head.

“John, go.” Sherlock’s deep voice was as steady and self-assured as always, the slight pain in it the only indication that he was unwell. 

007 was not accustomed to backing down. But he could hear more sets of feet making their way down the stairs, and he knew it would be pointless to stay and get them both killed.

He turned and ran, hating himself the whole way back to Q’s safe house.

 

*****

 

It was with a pained sigh of relief that Sherlock saw the agent go, the gun pressed to his head and roaring pain in his side a good reminder of how much he’d miscalculated. He’d been prepared for Kate and Irene. Not half a dozen of hired goons she must have acquired, after Moriarty, of course, warned her about this very thing happening.

_”Stupid,”_ he breathed, the word quickly turning to a groan as the idiotic neanderthal cuffed his hands in front of him— _mistake_ —and dragged him into some basement cell under the house, concrete and completely unoriginal. 

_If they plan for this thing to be able to hold me…_

As soon as the heavy metal door clicked shut and locked, Sherlock sat and tried to assess his injuries. Luckily, the men Irene had hired were not only monumental idiots but bad aims as well, and the bullet meant for the meat of his shoulder had only clipped his side. It was still bleeding an awful lot though, and really all too painful. He had been right in not taking a field job.

There’d be extensive bruises by tomorrow where he’d been manhandled and kicked for good measure, but he wasn’t in immediate danger of dying. In fact, he was slightly more upset over the loss of the flash that was supposed to contain all of Irene’s laptop, while he’d gotten hold of for only a minute.

The only source of air was through small windows maybe a foot tall on the top of the walls of the basement, and Sherlock could only laugh quietly at how utterly _underestimated_ he was, how underestimated the entire Q Division was. 

He had come more than prepared.

Needless to say, the explosions at three AM in Belgravia were not the work of terrorists.

 

*****

 

If there was one thing John had learned in the field about working with a partner was that you planned everything out together, or it all went to shit. And since he was working with an analytical genius, Sherlock had mentioned that if either one of them was compromised and had to be left behind, the other would rendezvous to the underground flat and wait it out a day and a night before going off to continue the mission, either by forgetting about the compromised partner or going back for them. The latter choice had been added by John, and he had tried to ignore Sherlock’s disapproving rant about mortality rates of captured agents.

He certainly didn’t want to remember the mortality rates now, because for some reason he was genuinely upset at the thought of Sherlock being dead. They’d always exchanged nothing more than snarky banter and the occasional exasperated complaint after John failed yet again to return one of Q’s precious gadgets, and yet now John had already come to think of him as a friend.

Maybe it was the fact that Sherlock had told John things that were supposed to be strictly confidential, protecting the anonymity of the Quartermaster.

Maybe it was the fact that John, however unwillingly, admired his unfailing genius in next to all things.

Whatever it was, John couldn’t even think of sleep until it was on the wrong side of midnight, when he drifted off into a half-conscious, troubled haze.

Only to be woken up of course, at some unholy hour of the morning, gun in his hand as he listened to a tireless pounding on the trap door into the underground flat. He stalked into the kitchen, wearing his dress pants and a jumper that he favoured, creeping up the steps to throw open the door.

He found his gun trained on an exhausted, bloody, but _alive_ Quartermaster.

“Sherlock!” 

Gun clattering forgotten to the floor John closed the hatch and then proceeded to half drag, half carry Sherlock onto the his blue couch. The Quartermaster himself was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion and blood loss, having just made his way on foot from what was left of the Adler house with a gaping wound in his side.

John’s medical training that he’d picked up somewhere along the way as a spy kicked in and he proceeded to tug off Sherlock’s suit jacket, trying to ignore how the shirt underneath clung to his body, his eyes immediately finding where the bullet had clipped.

A few inches over and Sherlock would have been gone, a good half of his intestines with him.

The safe house was well stocked with supplies for this kind of emergency, although it didn’t make stitching up Sherlock’s side on a bloody couch any easier, or less awkward.

The stitches he made in silence were punctuated with Sherlock’s heavy breathing, his involuntary gasps when John would pour more antiseptic on the wound. After a particularly dramatic one, where John had admittedly been slightly distracted, he felt the need to apologize.

“Sorry there. Just hold on a bit, I’m almost done.”

Sherlock was mumbling painfully under his breath about neanderthals and idiots, eyes squeezed shut. John was, once again, trying to focus on the stitches. Sherlock without a shirt on was proving to be more distracting than John had ever imagined (not that he did), not so much skinny as wiry. He decided not to delve too much into what this thought process meant.

When he was finished Sherlock made no move to put a shirt back on, or move at all, content with staring at the ceiling with those vivid eyes of his, curls in a complete(ly good looking) disarray. John mumbled something about needing clothes and weapons before getting the hell out of dodge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading
> 
> Feedback is much loved  
> It's coveted  
> Gimme
> 
> :)


	3. The Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles evilly*  
> Whatever path you take,   
> Whatever roads you choose,  
> You will always end up,  
> Here.
> 
> Oops wrong fandom.
> 
> GET READY FOR THE FALL

The next morning saw Sherlock awake and in pain at seven am, 007 curled up and dead asleep in an armchair he'd pulled up to the couch. His side felt like it was on fire, a burning pain that made him hiss at the slightest movement and then quickly fall into silence, not wanting to wake his the agent sleeping just a few feet away. 

Sherlock stared at the older (though considerably shorter) man, reading what had transpired in the stains of blood on his sweater, creases of his jeans. His muscular form was somehow swallowed in the giant jumper, and Sherlock could feel something akin to affection rise within him, foreign but not completely unwelcome.

He was no fool, and he certainly didn't lie to himself. Sherlock had recognized an immediate attraction to the spy he had allied with, and had also recognized how completely impossible any semblance of a romantic relationship could be, not to mention the fact that Sherlock could not seem to deduce a hint of attraction in return.

Not that he had given the topic much thought. There were more important matters at hand.

After maybe ten minutes of jagged, painful movements in a hopeless attempt to sit up without searing pain, Sherlock resigned himself to waking up the secret agent. He settled back down, shouting obstinately at the ceiling. "John. John! 007. John Watson _wake up._ "

Somewhere around _007_ John began to stir, up and awake just seconds later, this time gun in check. He blinked sleepily at Sherlock, almost hovering over him.

"Oh god, what time is it? Sherlock how are you feeling? Did they do anything else to you—wait how the hell did you escape?" John rambled, lifting up Sherlock's loose dress shirt to check to wound. If he noticed the Quartermaster's shiver he didn't show it.

"It is 7:30, in pain, nothing much but a few bruises, and I blew the place up."

John was definitely awake now, eyes wide, looking quite comical with a slight bed head. "You _blew up_ Irene Adler's house? Is everyone dead? Did you at least get the flash?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If you ask this many questions its a wonder you get anything done on the field. If you really must know, the Q division has more than a few tricks up its sleeves. Child's play. And I only had to blow out part of the basement." Sherlock watched in amusement as John visibly relaxed, sinking back into the armchair. "Although I did kill the idiot who shot me. With that level of intelligence I'd hazard he's more useful this way."

He ignored John's subsequent glare. "Could you help me up now? I've been shot, you know."

John was grumbling even as he leaned over and slung Sherlock's lanky form partly over his shoulders, both men pointedly ignoring the position. "I'm the one who had to stitch up your dying arse, you're welcome."

"Thank you," Sherlock mumbled quietly, once he was settled in a considerably better position to work with a computer. This whole terrorist attack situation must be quite serious if he's thanking people this often.

John had padded into the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with two mugs of tea and flattened hair. 

"Hungry?" 

"What day is it?"

_John started, his tone not far from a clucking mother. "You were shot last night. And I need you alive for this."_

_"Of course you do," Sherlock mumbled dejectedly even as he munched on a muffin. John turned into the kitchen on to pretense of putting away his mug, hiding a smile._

_*****_

_John doesn't know how it happens, but somewhere between stitching up an unconcious Sherlock and having to care for him for an entire week, the tension between two people unaquainted with each other all but disappears, leaving in its a place a shaky relationship that he doesn't completely understand. All he knows is that when Sherlock, smug and impatient at being able to walk again, decides to surprise him in his sleep once more, John _almost_ manages not to pull a weapon, and feels almost guilty about almost shooting the Quartermaster for a second time._

_Sherlock's mannerisms hadn't changed much, except he was, of course, more dependent on John, in little moments that John realized he was fond of. Like when his laptop was just a smidge too far, rather than extending his arm Sherlock would call out for John whether he was in the bathroom or in the middle of eating. John found most of Sherlock's qualities endearing in some way or another, even his complete laziness in the physical sense, or his habit of staying up for days on end, deciding that three in the morning was an appropriate time for violin. He decided firmly not to delve into these feelings._

_A week of recovery was all Sherlock would allow himself, a week of working solely from the underground 221B while John puttered around, a domestic secret agent making tea and soup and plugging in the wires to Sherlock's computer when he got tired. It was an odd arrangement, no doubt, but then these were odd times._

_He remembered John's face, half disappointment and half frustration when Sherlock had told him that he'd lost the flash, before promptly pulling the contents of Irene's computer onto the wall while John sputtered into his mug and Sherlock lectured him on his ability to gain access to a device within moments. Honestly it wasn't even that hard. A mediocre hacker could manage it._

__"Really John, am I that underestimated?"_ _

__"No Sherlock, you never were. But then what the hell was the flash for?"_ _

__"So she wouldn't suspect."_ _

_Granted, Irene was probably suspecting greatly either way, but at least her body guards had fallen for it, and her computer had not been discarded, giving Sherlock the chance to transfer it all from the safety of his underground flat._

_There had been a vast amount of usable information on it; access to her emails, some of which were directly to Moriarty, and also a collection of usernames and passwords and the email confirmation that she would be flying, in two days, to Paris, France of all places._

_Sherlock had never been one for sentiment, but he still wished he could have taken a picture of a John's face when he'd asked whether he fancied a trip to the city of love._

_*****_

_John didn't know what was worse, milling around a crowded, panicky Heathrow airport out in the open alone, or wandering out in the open at Heathrow trying to lug around a lanky, moody, Quartermaster. After Sherlock had been rude to fifteen different people (yes, he was counting) John settled on the former wholeheartedly. They’d be dead before they reached Paris if they kept attracting this many eyes._

_In the waiting area, settled down on benches with John sipping café tea and Sherlock buried in his laptop, things got slightly better. The agent was on high alert, scanning the crowd constantly over the rim of his cup, but this was his behavior most of the time unless he was in the safety of HQ or a safe house. Not that HQ had proved very safe after all._

_Their flight was in first class _and_ only one and a half hours long, but a lot could happen in a half an hour. Being confined in such a small space, a thousand feet in the air made John a little more than uneasy, the complete opposite to Sherlock who was still typing away, lines of code that John would never understand flying by the screen as fast as they were through the clouds._

_An hour in, when it became apparent that nobody was going to try and hijack the plane, John turned his attention to the world outside, and then to Sherlock, who was so intent on his work that he didn’t even notice 007 staring, at his fast, long fingers and the sharp angles of his face, the ridiculously high cheekbones._

_And then Sherlock turned his head ever so slightly and caught John’s gaze, both stubbornly not looking away until the pinging over head told them they should buckle up, landing soon, and then the moment was over._

_*****_

_This wasn’t John’s first time in Paris. Oh no, not at all._

_His adventures in the city of love always, _always_ led to one lover (on an occasion, a string of them) before they all either betrayed him, died, or disappeared. Not that he’d really known much about any of them. They’d all kind of blurred together in the end, which was probably a sign that what he was had been doing wasn’t exactly healthy or kind._

_Not that John was looking for a lasting relationship. The idea seemed like a dream of another universe, impossible but wonderfully enticing. He wasn’t a careless young man anymore, but the life he led couldn’t be shared with a civilian._

_The last time he’d been here he had almost fallen off the Eiffel Tower, his lover had been shot near the famous Cordon Bleu and the mission had been a successful one nonetheless. He didn’t reiterate any of these things to Sherlock who strides next to him in his long belfast coat, and he realizes they look like any other couple strolling in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, standing unusually close._

_With that though John scoots away, not that Q notices, too busy looking around and mumbling things like _”Twelve on the dot,”_ and _”the corner, where are they?”__

_John wasn’t completely lost on what he was saying (for once. Intercepting phone calls hadn't been hard for the Quartermaster of MI-6, and Moriarty was apparently meeting Irene on some corner near the tower. He scanned the crowd as well, but nobody matched the pictures that Sherlock had shown of Moriarty, nor did he recognize Irene, although everywhere he looked there were people who could have been them._

_He was still fruitlessly scanning the streets (a safe distance between him and Sherlock) when a hand, _Sherlock's_ bloody hand grabbed his and ran, tugging him into an alleyway._

_Well if they didn't look like couple now._

_All thoughts about that subject were conveniently washed from his mind when he spotted a figure walking away from them down the street, maybe a hundred meters from the alleyway they were peaking out of. The figure was undoubtedly Irene Adler, arm hooked around a man who could only be James Moriarty._

_"What are we going to do?" he whispered to Sherlock, tugging on the back of his coat. "where are they going?"_

_"Lunch I suppose," Sherlock answered, straightening up. "Right over there," he pointed to a rather fancy looking restaurant (they all looked rather fancy after all) and sure enough in a couple strides they turned and headed inside._

_Ten minutes later they seated a couple seats behind Irene and Moriarty, safely out of their view. John had realized somewhere between the waitress winking and lightly little red candles and the seating manager telling them they looked adorable that their cover story may as well be a gay British couple flying in for vacation._

_It wasn't as of this was the first time he'd been undercover as a couple, not even the first time he'd been undercover as couple with a man._

_He tried to convince himself it was the nerves of the past few days, and that it had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Sherlock. Sherlock, who was the one who was facing Irene and Moriarty, eyes firmly on them, reading lips and gestures with a scary intensity until the waitress reappeared._

_The switch was instantaneous. Sherlock's face loosened and morphed into a smile, hand shooting across the table to entwine with John's._

_"Are you ready to order?"_

_The waitress spoke English, and even though both John and Sherlock spoke fluent French they stuck with it._

_"John, what do you want to get?" Sherlock's voice was fond but not overly. John smiled smoothly, withdrawing his hands to look at the menu. They ended up ordering very little (chicken Marsala and something complicated and French in Sherlock's end), not eating much of it either._

_Eating lunch while spying on people who sold off terrorists like lollipops tended to do that, he supposed._

_The switch in Sherlock's demeanor was stunning, and John couldn't help but think that the stage had lost a wonderful actor._

_*****_

_After the lunch they’d spent watching Irene and Moriarty (John trusted that Sherlock had gleaned a good deal more than he had) they had checked into an elaborate hotel that John had recognized at once; he’d spent more than a few of his trips to Paris here on the fund of MI-6, and the staff recognized him for it._

_“Mr. Bond!” The man at the desk cried, attention shifting from his computer screen to John. He was under quite a lot of aliases, but James Bond had always been his favorite. The man at the desk smoothed back his inky hair and turned to Sherlock, who extended his hand without missing a beat._

_“Benedict Carlton.” He supplied, smiling amiably. John filed away the alias, wondering simultaneously whether Sherlock Holmes was an alias as well._

_For some reason he really hoped it wasn’t._

_*****_

_For some reason, pretending to be couple with Sherlock was harder than when he had to do it with a fellow spy, and yet living with Sherlock almost came as easily as breathing. Perhaps it was the fact that they’d already lived together for a week in London, but upon arriving up in the new hotel room a pattern was already established. They moved around each other with ease, passing mugs and computers and coexisting in ways that John never could with another spy, always sleeping lightly in fear that they’d try and kill him in the night or something (or staying up for other reasons)._

_Night was falling now, the city below their window lighting up in a warm golden glow of lights. Sherlock was an odd sight, curled up on the plush white couch with his mobile in his hand, tracing whatever business Irene had been up to on her phone._

_Apparently they were arranging a drop spot for the hard drive, and apparently John and Sherlock weren’t the only interested party. By means that John had not asked about Sherlock had somehow acquired the information that the original owner of the drive had surfaced to claim it._

_“Jonathan Small,” Sherlock was thinking out loud. “He served in Afghanistan and, by way of chance, happened to befriend one of the six people in the world that could acquire this information.”_

_John set down his tea and stepped away from the window sill, trying to ignore the fact that Sherlock was wearing that ridiculous satin blue sleeping gown yet again. He really needed to stop _trying_ to think if things and just not think of the them. Or confront them._

_John shoved his thoughts in the opposite direction._

_“Six people in the world…”_

_“Well obviously I’m one of them,” Sherlock snapped, throwing back his head in exasperation. “But the man he allied with is dead as I’m sure you know.”_

_John was getting tired of being confused. “How should I know?”_

_Sherlock was giving him that look again, like _we-really-know-what’s-going-on-here_ , except he didn’t, and it was frustrating him. “You’re the one that killed him after all.” he finally answered._

_“I’ve killed many people.” John grumbled, and it may or may not have been a threat._

_“Silva? Who did you think I was talking about?”_

_The sole reason John didn’t try and punch Sherlock right then was because of surprise, the pieces falling in place._

_Sherlock continued, speaking to the ceiling in that vacant way. “Silva’s vendetta wasn’t only against M, John. It was against the entire British Empire, and he had the means even after death to ensure chaos would follow him.”_

_“But Jonathan Small is trying to get the information back.” John said slowly, wrapping his head around this. “And he was Silva’s accomplice, not Moriarty. Then why is England still being attacked?”_

_“Moriarty just wants havoc, he’s playing a game. I don’t think Jonathan Small has an iota of Moriarty’s genius, but he has the means to get what he want’s either way.”_

_Upon seeing John confused again he sighed long sufferingly. “Can’t you just think? We aren’t playing Moriarty and Jonathan, we are playing Moriarty and Silva, even after he’s dead. “_

__Playing the game._ _

_It was a frightening thought that Sherlock would have made a wonderful criminal, a terrifying enemy, and yet he’d chosen to fight against that instead. The underworld lost a wonderful criminal mastermind as well. Perhaps they had lost the best._

_“So what are we going to do?”_

_“We’re going to let Jonathan Small get the hard drive.” Sherlock breathed, fingers steepled in what John was now calling his thinking pose._

_“ _What?_ ” John said. _

_Another frustrated sigh. “I don’t want to risk trying to steal from Moriarty. I could if I wanted to,” Sherlock added quickly, “, but taking it from Jonathan Small will be much easier. You remember me saying that he had the means to intercept the drop but not the brains. All we have to do is steal it from him once he has it in his possession. I doubt he’d be able to keep it for long either way, Moriarty does have remarkable reach in this world.”_

_Sherlock’s tone almost sounded appraising, and John recognized an odd type of respect that Sherlock rarely gave._

_*****_

_All in all, John should have known the outcome before it happened._

_Returning to Britain was all done in short order, Sherlock a bit more tame, completely absorbed in his laptop._

_They had followed first Moriarty, stopping only when he got on a train headed straight for Amsterdam without even so much as contacting Irene. Sherlock had been understandably distraught at this turn of events, except for all of the wrong reasons._

__”How the hell could I have been wrong? He was going to give her the phone, he hadn’t known I was there…”_ _

__“Sherlock, what are we going to—”_ _

__“Well this will prove to be dull."_ _

_The next course of action was to, of course, follow Irene Adler back to the airport, where they blended in as tourists from America, with impeccable accents and maps of all sorts, John even going so far as to wearing a Yankees cap. He didn’t even know how to play baseball._

_“I swear, if she gets on a plane…” John muttered, earning him a quick glare before Sherlock’s attention was reassumed by Irene in a dark purple dress and heels, who had started walking in a straight line towards the exit towards them, passing each and every luggage pick up on the way. And then, when it seemed like she would walk right out of the door without so much as sending a text a pale hand shot out and picked up… nothing._

_The shock on her face was evident, clearly visible where they were standing by the bathrooms. She waited at the same luggage pick up for nearly ten minutes before dialling Moriarty to tell him the package had not come, wherein she was instantly surrounded by his men._

_Not that John and Sherlock had known that. They were already gone from their position by the restrooms, chasing after a man in a sharp grey suit, holding a suitcase that was decidedly dark purple, the color of Irene’s dress._

_From then on it was easy._

_John took over since this was his area of expertise, the two of them following the man back onto the street until he neared a inlet to a parking complex and got a bullet in the head for his troubles._

_The shot sounded more like a pop, John’s Walther on silent. Seconds later Sherlock swooped onto the body and retrieved the small purple case, popping open the latch and smiling wide at the camera phone inside._

_“Quickly now,” he murmured in John’s ear as they headed into the parking garage, the body stowed underneath a car that Sherlock was certain hadn’t moved in two years. The job had been one of the easiest John had ever done, and that was certainly saying something._

_So as stated before, he should have expected what would transpire. Moreover he should have expected Sherlock to expect it._

_Except he had. He had seen it all play out in his head minutes before they’d even stepped into the airport._

_Sherlock passed John the case and the phone, glanced around at the exits (elevator up to his right, maintenance to the street on his left) and walked on John’s right side, hands out of his pockets, eyes bright. The man next him never noticed anything wrong, happy that Sherlock trusted him with the phone, but otherwise completely oblivious. That is, until three men rose from behind the cars parked up ahead, each toting their own guns._

_That was all John saw before Sherlock was pushing him, hard, to the left, the suitcase the only cushion as he smashed into the metal of an exit door, the ones used by the workers. Everything seemed to slow down and at the same time flow impossibly fast. He turned around in time to see Sherlock fire in that precise, clinical precision, once to the left, once to the right, before the man in the middle fired, a burst of bright sparks shooting from the gun before catching Sherlock straight in the chest._

_The shooter had been a crack shot. It was right over the heart._

_And then John was running for the second time and hating himself even more, throwing open the emergency door and hearing it’s metallic slam instead of the sound of Sherlock’s body falling in that horrible dull thump, dead before he even hit the ground._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it.
> 
> Please leave feedback! It's motivation.


	4. In A Stranger's Bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I thought it was appropriate to have a longer update period after that... parallel universe of a Reichenbach Fall. Maybe I'm an evil person. Oh well :D.
> 
> I hope you like it. All errors are mine.

The two men flanking his to-be murderer fell like birds to metal stones, their guns clattering down before either could even relatively aim at their target; John. 

John, who was the priority now, and for the first time in his life Sherlock didn't feel the need for self preservation. His vast mind was circulating around the agent next to his, not himself, and the mindset felt right.The phone was the clinical priority, but he honestly would have shoved John out of the danger either way, would have chosen to walk on John's right side all over again.

The man in the middle's aim was true; he would not miss, and he would not hesitate. Sherlock's mind flickered around his stance and came to the predicted conclusion: he would not have enough time. Time seemed to move sluggishly, his arm whipping down as if through water from his aim at John's shooter, the barrel of the man in the middle, the one sent to kill him, aiming straight towards Sherlock's heart. Then everything resumed, as if someone had pressed play, the bang of a gun quickly followed by the metallic clang of the escape door closing, and before he could blink Sherlock was staring at the wiry ceiling.

Pressure throbbed in Sherlock's chest, but he wasn't dead, and—as he reached up clumsily to pat at his coat—there was no blood apparent. 

The remnants of the bullet—or non-bullet—were probably lying around his person.

His side theory had been correct. Moriarty had wanted him alive, and the bullet had been a blank.

His head was now throbbing from its rather violent crack on the cement floor, protesting as he scrambled into a semi sitting position, in time to see his kidnapper-to-be's feet, legs, and then bottom of shoe before everything resumed to darkness.

*****

John was in some sort of shock. That had to be it, except he had been bloody _trained_ not to do the whole 'shock' business and yet here he was, flat against a cold London alley wall, breathing hard long after he had recovered from the run and staring blankly up into the sky, seeing nothing, taking in everything. It was perfectly starry out, beautiful.

John hated it with an irrational passion.

His ally—friend—it was impossible to put a label on what Sherlock Holmes was to him—was dead. The smartest man he had ever known had been shot down in a dark underground parking lot and yet the sky was still twinkling with stars that he couldn't see, like it was mocking Sherlock, mocking John. Some sane part of his mind recognized how mad his thoughts were, but the vast majority was stumbling, trying to understand that he was, once again, all alone.

Alone to finish the mission.

The phone had been retrieved. His friend had been shot dead, like his lover at Cordon Bleu.

And he was once again, alone. Mission accomplished.

Summoning a great deal of willpower he pushed off the wall, feeling the absence in the cold breeze of the night as he stepped onto the sidewalk, city lights highlighting shadows where he walked. It took him half an hour to stumble into Sherlock's underground flat, and then another ten minutes of simply standing outside the disguised entrance, unable to go in and see the half finished mugs and violin sheets strewn all around, not wanting to see it all and know that Sherlock would never come flouncing through the door to make everything messier. 

He hadn't realized the Quartermaster had meant so much to him. It had only been a few weeks in his company, and yet from the first day it had felt right somehow, obvious that they could coexist. Coexist and thrive.

And there had been feelings; fleeting desires, lasting affection that John had been so afraid of, so unwilling to face. And now, sitting in an empty flat, he had come to terms with it. The irony made John want to laugh, but he stopped himself because he knew it would turn into ugly sobs.

He hadn't cried in years, not when people left him so often, not when his past was just littered with the dead. The innocent dead, the rightfully dead, they were all still bloody dead. And yet here he was, eyes blurring for his Quartermaster. No, not Q. Sherlock Holmes.

His mind was numbed in angry grief, looping over and over the sharp crack of the gun and the silhouette of a black coat _falling_ and then the hollow, metallic clang of the emergency exit. He stayed like this, stagnant, staring blankly at the bullet holes in the flat’s patterned wall, until the sun surfaced, not that John could see it.

He was underground, as was Sherlock Holmes.

***** 

The cold was with Sherlock before he had even fully awoke, slipping into his dreams until reality became apparent and he was left with the feeling in his limbs, sliding into his bones. The tips of his fingers felt numb and his first thought was that they’d be useless in typing like this. His second thought was a flurry of panic, recollection, and then calm analysis, and so by the time he had opened his eyes his face was a smooth mask, staring up at a gray cement ceiling.

A quick glance told him that he was inside a cell, a couple decades old at least, with one window. The grainy cement scratched his palms as he heaved himself into a sitting position, the cold of the cell brushing his skin. His belfast coat was missing, as were the majority of the beta’d gadgets he kept on him for protection. All his explosives, all his poisons and his gun. He was left with an arsenic capsule in the back of his mouth, a purple shirt, dress pants and no shoes. 

Shame. They had shot out knives.

The cell he was in was lit by four small windows near the ceiling of the room, large enough for a leg, maybe two, but nothing he could escape out of. They were also a good ten feet above his head. The only thing he could see out of them was blue sky, flat and almost useless. It was daytime where he was being kept. So what?

The base of the cell was long enough that he could lie straight with a few feet to spare, grey walls sterile with what smelled like fresh paint over old wounds. Sherlock Holmes had never been a fan of gut feelings, but it was as if he could feel the old bloodshed inside, haunting the doorless cell. A shining metal cuff chained his ankle to the wall, the chain long enough so that he could walk from the wall to the center of the room, and no further. 

The most interesting thing in the otherwise barren room was the small black dot in the ceiling corner from where he was, and it didn’t take any brilliant deductions for Sherlock to realize that he was being filmed.

It took hours for something to happen judging by the darkening of the sky. Just as things were getting too dark for him to see much of anything except maybe a few speckles of stars, a shuffling sound came from above, and suddenly he was plunged into darkness, boards placed over the four little windows above.

The he sat in the darkness for all of a few seconds before lights from above zapped into existence, small but powerful LEDs he’d missed before, hidden within the seams of the ceiling and wall. It took him a few more moments to deduce that they would be of no use to him. Moriarty had taken every precaution, although respect was now the farthest thing from his mind. The lights hurt his unacclimated eyes, made everything seem harsh and pale.

They also accented the angles of Moriarty’s suit as entered Sherlock’s cell, through a door that melded seamlessly with the wall when it closed shut behind him. It had been, of course, at the opposite wall to the one Sherlock was chained to, so that he would have no way to reach it without breaking the bones in his ankle.

His mind rushed forward and sprinted, grasping at every detail in the other man’s attire, his stance, his hair. Moriarty’s own dark eyes showed that he was doing to same. He stood with legs at shoulder width, a good distance away from Sherlock without a hair out of place. There was a cool, unimpressed expression within his dead eyes, even as his smile widened into something fanatical; something mad.

Sherlock stood like a gentleman, bare feet on the cold cement, the chains on his right ankle rattling in the silence. 

Moriarty’s voice was uniquely accented, breaking off in odd places and stilted with a chaotic, calculated precision. It made Sherlock still, his eyes flying to the other man’s face. 

“So this is the Quartermaster of MI6, Mr. Sherlock Holmes…” 

There was a childish mockery in his voice, drawing out the vowels in his name with unnerving intensity. For the first time in a while Sherlock could not tell the facade from the real thing.

“And you are James Moriarty.” Sherlock answered, his voice low and unimpressed by default.

“Oh you _know_ me! I feel so _honoured_. You know, all these years, and we’ve never once met. I was beginning to feel _ignored_.” Moriarty stepped closer, right up to Sherlock as if trusting him not to lash out. He was shorter by a head, looking up at Sherlock’s impassive face with a lazy smirk, his eyes never once showing an emotion.

“I never knew I had a fan.” Sherlock replied, meeting his black gaze head on.

“Not a fan,” Moriarty clucked, stepping back and then circling around the taller man, as if appraising him. “We proper geniuses must watch out for each other. Collaborate and all. What a disappointment when the youngest one decided to go off a work for the side of the _angels_.” he elongated the word in mild disgust, stopping and smiling at Sherlock. 

He stopped himself from speaking, from denying the pure white title, from speaking the truth. That he was just a devil amongst demons. That the only difference between the two sides were that his side just so happened to have a few angels amongst all the darkness.

Like John. Hardened, warrior angels but angels all the same.

Instead he returned the smile and pulled his arms behind his back, matching Moriarty’s laid back stance.

“Sorry to disappoint,” he murmured sarcastically, eyes bored. 

Moriarty quirked an arching eyebrow, the shadow of a smirk appearing. “But then it seems you’ve come quite far in this position, hmm Sherly? And now I hear that dear old John got away from my two assassins. Expected, obviously, but such a nuisance all the same. That drive was all I had left of my _Silva_."

Moriarty's eyes seemed to grow impossibly darker, unnatural in the glowing light, and Sherlock stopped himself from breathing for a moment. His adversary noticed, large grin turning dangerous. Silva and Moriarty... _Silva and Moriarty_. It made sense. It made perfect sense and Sherlock's mind berated him on his stupidity even as Moriarty stepped closer once more.

“Sebastian Moran didn’t die all those years ago,” Sherlock breathed. Moriarty only narrowed his eyes, but he knew he had deduced right, that he and Silva had been one and the same.

"You know, how it feels, to lose your other? Or have you always been an ice man like your brother, _heartless_." Moriarty's eyes flickered darkly, a hand snaking up to tug at Sherlock's collar so his face would lower, so he could bore into his eyes. Sherlock wasn't sure what he was revealing, only that his light eyes were so much easier to read that those black snakes Moriarty held. But Sherlock read the slight curve of Moriarty’s mouth, the teasing, triumphant lilt in his eyes and knew that he had found the truth.

Sherlock had never been like Mycroft. Not an iceman, no, a virgin. An iceman needed something to melt down to his heart, something he had found in a common DI of all people. A virgin had simply never known what it was to have a heart, had never experienced such things, and maybe didn’t want to. Sherlock had thought he was just that; uninterested, married to being the Quartermaster.

Until John. Until a few weeks with a world weary, womanizing agent in the midst of post-apocalyptic Britain. 

His heart certainly had timing.

 

*****

 

John gave himself a day to grieve. It would seem harsh to the commonwealth, but considering the fact that John usually mourned death for a good five seconds to a minute this tribute was as a good as a year. And even after it wasn’t enough, he walked like a zombie to the kitchen, all the while resolving that he’d return to the surface after a cup of tea, to see what had happened to Britain while he’d been gone.

Above ground, morning light streaming through the dusting of clouds and making John’s eyes ache, nothing seemed horribly apocalyptic, no ruins or screams or fires in London. The only sign that something was wrong was in the silence, horrible, unpierceable silence.

As he made his way towards central London he only spotted one car, black like the government trackers they had used in MI6, which had veered down a street at speeds double the normal rate, trash shifting in it’s wake. The houses were all boarded up; a mother and child spotted him a good block away and seemed to run away. Perhaps they had seen the gun he was holding, or perhaps things were just that bad.

Tesco’s was closed, moreover it had been raided. He could see the spot near the entrance, at the mouth of an alley, where he had saved Sherlock, where things had begun.

He averted his eyes because the sight ached more than the sun.

He walked a few more meters, footsteps eerily loud, the silence making him feel exposed, before a shrill ring cut through the air. He startled so badly that a shot hit the side of an innocent telephone booth, shattering the glass in a loud crack.

And then he ran. Towards the broken booth, because it could only be one person who was calling. If he had been thinking clearly, he would have considered the idea of a trap. Would have considered, and answered anyways.

“Hello,” he gasped into the receiver, shoes crunching the broken glass.

The cool, impersonal voice over the other end was the second voice that he wanted to hear the most in the whole world. The first had been his brother, and he was very dead.

John mentally cursed his internal monologue and then forced himself to listen. 

“007. This is Mycroft Holmes.” When John didn’t answer he continued with the air of one speaking about the weather. “I trust you’ve retrieved what I asked of Sherlock?” 

John blustered his answer, anger clouding his old instinct to finish the job. “Yes, I have your bloody camera phone, I got it from your _dead brother_. The one who was shot, Mycroft. Sherlock, ring a bell?”

John was expecting many different reactions, indifference maybe, like everything else, maybe the smallest flash of anger. He hadn’t been expecting a laugh.

“Oh John, what do you ordinary people really see when they look at the world?” His voice still held the patronizing laughter, but it was more serious, sharp. “Sherlock is not dead. Had he been, the little island Moriarty is hiding on would have gone up in a mushroom cloud.”

By the end of this statement Mycroft’s voice had grown deathly cold, murderous. John barely noticed. 

“Not, dead? Sherlock’s _alive?_ ” John hissed, feeling hope leap in his chest that he tried in vain to tamp down.

“Yes, 007. Not dead. Alive. Incidentally, he’s on that little island I just threatened to bomb.” Mycroft said, some of the coolness seeping back into his voice. “I need you to meet me at 221B Baker street, in the bakery below.”

“To give you the camera phone?” John asked distractedly, his mind chanting _alive. he’s alive_ , his body thrumming with the news. He felt impossibly lighter, more alert. 

“To receive a new mission. I imagine you won’t need any encouragement in this one. I want you to find my little brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is much loved.  
> Please.  
> It keeps me motivated.
> 
> Have a nice day/night :D


	5. The Drowning Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: water torture.

John nearly broke the already damaged telephone booth, smashing the receiver into the box so that the entire frame shook and sprayed glass, shards crunching under his leather shoes. He then proceeded to run, past the closed shops and barred windows, all the way the address Mycroft had given him, hope like fire in his veins.

When he arrived only minutes later, slightly out of breath and a good deal calmer, he was met with an odd sight, lights on in the bakery under a set of flats, cozy looking and inhabited by two men, possibly the only shop open in the whole of London. The bell above rang when he opened the glass door, the aroma of baked goods a coffee wafting towards him before he’d even crossed the threshold. 

The man who controlled a great deal of the British Government sat in a booth right in the back, sugary blue cupcakes sitting on a plate to his left, a cup of tea to his right, both left to cool as he eyed a newspaper that most definitely did not have his attention. John had experienced many dealings with Mycroft Holmes, and if there was one thing he had taken away from them it was that the man was as sharp as his hawk like nose.

Walking towards him John couldn’t help but recognize the similarity between the brothers, the way they sat with they’re right leg crossed, hand’s either steepled or drumming the melody of some classical work or another. Mycroft’s cheekbones were high but not as prominent, hair controlled and short unlike Sherlock’s sweep of curls. Still, when the man spoke, John had to look somewhere else as the rush of familiarity hit him, making something within him ache and sigh, still mourning Sherlock despite the most recent news.

Mycroft even spoke like him, without eye contact, as if he was speaking to himself. “I see you and Sherlock have become rather well acquainted. A day of mourning, John? I wonder…” John sat down and almost winced at where he seemed to be heading. Mycroft noticed, still hidden behind his newspaper. “Never mind that.”

“I’m going to find Sherlock,” John stated, not much of a question as it was a fact, whether Mycroft was going to help or not.

The other man smiled, "Indeed," he folded the newspaper into quarters and tucked it into his suit. "Everything you need to know is in here." From within his jacket he drew out a Manila envelope labeled in big red marker S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K. He swallowed as he took it, gripping the folder like a lifeline.

Mycroft proceeded to slide keys across the table. They were old looking and brass, no unlike the ones that had always lived in Sherlock’s coat pocket.

“Are these…?” 

“Sherlock’s flat keys. Above this lovely little bakery is 221B Baker Street, where he’s lived for the past five years.” Mycroft said, a tense, ironic smile playing around his lips. “You can use it to prepare yourself for this mission here, although you’ll have to dig a bit deep to find anything of Sherlock’s to help you. He eradicated all evidence of his presence once the crisis hit.”

John nodded, taking the keys much like he had taken the folder. The _thank you_ stuck in his throat.

Mycroft pushed aside his cup of tea and stood, John following his example. “There is a Walther in the cabinet by the fridge, and semtex in his sock index. You’ll find some clothes and miscellaneous objects but I’m afraid that’s all that will help you. I thought you would appreciate staying here rather than at some underground den.” he picked up the cupcake, plate and all, and smiled as he turned towards the door. “I hope you succeed, 007.” there was an icy steel to his words, a warning of what failure would bring. 

John nodded grimly, picking up the envelope and tucking the keys in his pocket before he made his way out with Mycroft, watching him slide into a sleek black car and disappear around the bend. They keys sat heavy in his pocket as he turned to stare up at the flat that Sherlock had inhabited for five years. Balcony fencing in the windows, curtains drawn, it was a cold sight. He breathed in the cool air, exhaling as he stepped up to the door and inserted the keys. 

The inside of the flat was dark, slightly musty, dust floating in the sunlight that streamed in through the window, falling down on his shadow and the creaking wooden steps. The stairs seemed sad, abandoned. Everything was a shade of grey and brown.

He kept his gun out, checking every corner, but the flat was empty of all life. It seemed like the entire thing was just that; empty. Empty of food, light, and Sherlock. But even that couldn’t chase away the nostalgia, the familiarity that had made Mycroft’s visit almost painful.

It was an exact replica of the underground flat he had lived in with the addition of windows and the lack of sheet music and books. Had John been the enemy, he would have found no evidence that the Quartermaster had ever been here at all, save the Walther in the cabinet. With further inspection he found the semtex within a pair of black dress socks, tucked neatly into an index that Sherlock had organized, separated and folded. He rolled up the black socks and, without staying long enough to think about what he was doing, tucked them in his pocket with the explosives.

 

He was out of the flat before the sun rose, riding in a hotwired Jaguar to Heathrow under the steadily lightening sky. He had the information within Mycroft’s file memorized down to the smallest detail, words burning in his mind and heart and keeping him awake even as the caffeine wore off, weariness settling into the back of his eyes.

The highway lay stretched and barren in front of him. It reminded John of a television show he had seen so long ago, the one about zombies and the apocalypse, deserted streets left to rot as humanity slowly crumbled to hell.

He wondered whether this was the same.

Despite the abandoned roads Heathrow was open, although it could have been an entirely different airport from the one he had dragged Sherlock through. Like the roads it was almost completely empty, a stray passenger or two wandering around halls full of empty kiosks and coffee shops. The few employees there were sad, tired people with a sort of fear in there eyes. Everyone looked confused. The TV’s were the only consistency, flickering images on the news of further destruction, massacres and bombings and something about the Royal Family returning from hiding, although John took it all in with a distracted mind.

_I hope you succeed 007._

Thankfully, when he reached his wing Mike was sitting there at the luggage check in, coffee and donuts out, watching something on his phone just as he had been the last time John had needed the MI6 chain of airlines.

“Hello, I’d like a one way ticket to Hashima Island.” John said pleasantly.

Mike’s eyes flickered off the screen and on to his face, all the while muttering, “Wrong desk si—“ His mouth fell open with recognition.

“007,” he said, recovering quickly. He set the phone down and straightened. “Battleship Island? Silva?”

“Not anymore,” John said with finality, looking at expectantly the other agent. “Can you do it?”

“Course,” Mike grumbled, tapping away at his computer before standing and opening the gate for him, moving with the joints of someone who had been sitting for a very long time. He led John through the doors, the first being a simple employee passage, the second being bullet proof with three passcodes. It was a familiar route but it felt surreal, as if he had been a different person from the last time he’d walked down these halls. In a way that felt true. 

“Whole world going to hell, eh?” Mike remarked, pushing through onto the tarmac. The air brushed John’s face as he stepped out, taking in the sight of twelve white jets, noses black and shining, otherwise unmarked.

“I think everything will be normal in short order,” John answered absentmindedly, remembering the concealed relief in Mycroft’s voice when he’d heard of the retrieval of the phone. “Which one is mine?”

“First one to the right, 007. No resources at all since the first attacks. You okay with flying alone?” 

The question was an unnecessary pleasantry. John had almost always flown the jets without assistance. He remembered the last time a crew had joined him, and was surprised to find himself almost longing for that mission, for simpler times.

Times when the only stakes had been Queen and Country. High stakes, but impersonal, expected stakes a 007 dealt with. But personal ones? John Watson couldn’t remember the last time he’d attempted to rescue somebody he… cared for.

 

******

 

The days following Moriarty’s visit were almost enough to drive Sherlock insane. He could have dealt with torture, to an extent. Daily banter with his kidnapper would have been more entertaining than annoying. But Moriarty had _known_ him, read it in his eyes and his face and his hands. He had closed that impossible cell door and let Sherlock rot in the boredom. 

He wasn’t even sure whether days or months or hours had passed, only that time within the cell was sluggish as the first computer. The boards of the windows had gone up and never come off, the fluorescent LED’s burning white into his eyelids when he tried to sleep, washing everything pale. The painted walls mocked him, pristine and blank to the point where he had considered painting the walls red with a bloody finger just to mar it.

The little camera in the ceiling corner was almost just as irritating, although he refused to look at it, never making eye contact.

It didn’t take him long to withdraw into his mind palace, letting the constant stream of thoughts in his mind envelope him, until he saw without seeing and his mind had taken the autopilot over his body. He thought a lot of John, worries, feelings, a thousand and one theories of his health, what he was up to, what he was doing at this very moment. He relived memories, pain in his body and a couch under him, staring up at the ceiling while John made tea and fussed over the bullet wound. He remembered men and a gun and a bomb, Tesco’s not three feet away. 

In the heart of his palace Sherlock’s mind debated; reasoned and hoped and thought over what was to happen to him now. Whether he would ever see John again. Whether, if he were to come out of this alive, John would be coming to him, or whether he’d escape on his own. He knew his chances of survival were low, but then, this was no ordinary kidnapping. Moriarty wanted more revenge than death. He had lost something he couldn’t win, con, or cheat back, forever.

His childhood crept up, mixed with moments in MI6, memories of Mycroft, always cold, always deceptively warm. 

He was ripped from the mental blueprints of an upgrade to John’s personal Walther so suddenly his mind fumbled, hands bound in front of him and on his knees before he had even opened his eyes. 

_Stupid._ He thought to himself, berating. _So open to attack in that state of mind._

His eyes scanned whatever they could see, five masked men in blue suits crammed inside his cell, two restraining his arms and two more carrying in a hose that snaked out the door and camera, hooked up to a small silver laptop carried by Moriarty, who was looking as bored as Sherlock had been an hour ago. He had realized what was happening the moment he’d opened his eyes, but seeing the equipment made it real; here was the torture he had wanted only hours before. 

Despite all his credentials, all his genius, Sherlock had never been waterboarded in all his life. He had always sat in a lab, surrounded by technology, some of which were for torture, but had never been tested by the likes of _himself_. He hadn’t even been trained for it, as much as he might know the logistics of it, and how long he could hold his breathe.

Two and a half minutes. Two and a half minutes, that is, without a hose forcing water into his lungs on video.

He took the fear and buried it deep, threw it in the dungeons of his palace until all that was left was his normal aloofness, his expression molding into a mirror of Moriarty’s. 

The shorter man stood above him, smirking with cold, black eyes. “I imagine you’re bored enough to _die_ , Sherlock. Such a dull place,” he eyed the room distastefully, glancing around at the concrete while his fingers danced over the keys of the computer. “Ah well, its about to get _so_ much more interesting, wouldn’t you say? Like a television show,” thin lips stretched in a lopsided smile with the same dead eyes, like a marionette on strings. “I expect you know our little viewers. Your brother,” an elaborate press of a key, “and your spy.”

 

*****

 

The jet was set on autopilot half an hour after takeoff, leaving John a good ten hours of lounging in the cockpit, eyeing the dozen screens that hovered over the windows, playing news broadcasts and data over Battlefield Island and the little MI6 knew of Moriarty. 

An hour from Battlefield Island, all the screens went black.

John bolted upright from his slouch, hand itching to grab his gun even though there was no enemy to defeat aboard the jet. He had checked. 

All around him the screens were starting to flicker into static, hazardous colored dots becoming more and more uniform until all the screens formed one large image. 

His chest tightened, dread like ice water coursing through his body. As he turned to face the screens head on, a man lifted his head to the camera and smiled. His eyes were black and dead looking, smile splitting his face in two, cut in half by rows of white teeth. John recognized him immediately. 

_Moriarty_.

Scurrying around his were a number of men, all in the same blue suits. His eyes barely scanned over them, focusing instead on the man on his knees in front of Moriarty, his unruly curls hiding half his face, hands bound in front of him. Dark purple shirt and black slacks. No shoes.

_"Sherlock."_ he breathed, unconsciously leaning forward, feeling his heart beat in his ears, panicked and yet relieved. "Hey! Moriarty! What do you want?"

The men inside what he now recognized as a cement cell did not hear him. He watched as one of the blue suits pulled Sherlock onto his back, could hear through the radio speaker a painful thump as his head hit the concrete. His eyes were open, blank to match his expression. John winced sympathetically and then froze as another blue suit dragged in a hose.

_"No."_ John hissed at the screens, hands flying to his pockets where his cellphone was. "God, no."

Mycroft picked up on the third ring, speaking with a calmness that made John grit his teeth, his eyes watching helplessly as they prepared.

_"John?"_

"Mycroft. They've hacked into my jets screen system—" 

_"I know, John."_ Mycroft interrupted. He sounded almost pained. "I can see it too. It's untraceable.'

"Shut up, Mycroft! They're not bringing down the plane. They've got Sherlock on video here and they're... They're about to torture him." John could hear the tension, the fear in his voice, how it wavered in a way it never did.

There was silence for a moment, and the the sound of rapid fire typing and beeps from multiple devices. _"I am sending help to the island. They'll get there an hour after you, at best. You will have to retrieve Sherlock by yourself, and fast. I—"_

"Mycroft... has he ever been drowned before?" 

When he answered he somehow sounded older, weary. _"Not once. No training either. The Quartermaster position was never meant to be a field one. As it was highly unlikely he'd be kidnapped in the premises of MI6."_

"What should I do?" John asked, feeling desperation welling up as two men started to hold Sherlock down, after the Quartermaster had kicked one of them in the knee. The hose was already dripping water.

_"There is nothing you can do until you get to the island. Watch and gauge his condition."_

John nodded even though Mycroft could not see him, and ran through his training for the situation. One lesson caught in his memory, something circumstantial. He asked his next question cautiously, wondering how much Mycroft cared for Sherlock.

"Mycroft, if Sherlock appears to have died before I get there... Standard Protocol mandates that the mission is to have failed." he knew that Mycroft understood. There was a long pause and then a sigh.

_"John... If you could, try and collect his body. If it places you in too much danger there will be no repercussions if you retreat. I suppose...."_

"Of course, Mycroft."

 

*****

 

Sherlock's head throbbed, insistent against the cold cement underneath him. His hands were useless; bound, his body held down by painful grips on his legs and torso. His mind processed everything, kept on memorizing the data, although Sherlock would want to forget later. If he survived, Sherlock vowed, he would build a brand new dungeon just for these memories.

Now towering above him, Moriarty stood still tapping around on computer, still engrossed when he addressed the camera above them, "Now John, I imagine you already know who I am. I don't think you’re so stupid as to not know what we're doing here. About time we taught Sherlock some new tricks, hmm?”

Sherlock attempted to speak, “John, the cell is subterrain—” 

A pair of hands clasped at each side of his head, while another covered his mouth and plugged his nose. The air in his lungs was little and precious. 

One of the men took his hand off his mouth only to replace it with the cold metal nozzle of a hose. Cool water rushed into his mouth, down his throat, into his lungs.

Sherlock kept the panic at bay even as his mind started to slip, eyes fluttering up to the ceiling. Everything was loud and quiet at the same time, the silence of the cell, the roar of blood in his ears. His mind was starting to lose control, the need for air overruling any facade of calm he had. Through the desperation, the pounding of his heart he vaguely registered a grey suit leave the room, handing off the computer to one of his men. 

_“Keep him alive,”_ he told the blue suit, and the word’s brought him no comfort at all. Darkness was starting to creep into his vision, dimming the world.

A part of his mind was angry; so frustrated that this would how things would end. Underground, drowning maybe, shot in the head, at means not for him to decide. A part of his mind isolated itself from the pain, and there Sherlock hid, plotted.

A plan formulated immediately, though it wasn’t particularly ingenious. How fortuitous that Moriarty had left. Now he need only fool these men.

Perhaps, Sherlock thought wryly, he had adopted a penchant for playing dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it.
> 
> Feedback is on my Christmas list! I've been good...


	6. Choppers and the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John sagged in his seat, relieved only for the moment, praying to anyone that Sherlock would make it through. He would. He was Sherlock. He'd outlive god trying to have the last word, in no scenario would he ever die muted, unable to speak through the water pouring in.

John placed the receiver down in front of him, his attention resuming to the quickly deteriorating events happening on screen. It was driving him mad just sitting here, watching, just watching as Sherlock struggled, fingers scratching against the floor, helpless in a way he was never meant to be. Sherlock was always in control, always armed with bombs up his sleeves and his mouth and his nuclear powered brain.

He couldn’t look away anymore than he could make the damn plane fly faster.

His eyes only left Sherlock’s face when a voice crackled over through the speakers, a peculiar drawling accent, like someone bored out of their mind. It was Moriarty, speaking with a sideways smile and slightly shrugging shoulders, head tilted up to him.

_"Now John, I imagine you already know who I am. I don't think you’re so stupid as to not realize what we're doing here. About time we taught Sherlock some new tricks, hmm?”_

The words made his old anger simmer, lashing out at his insides, burning.

 _“John, the cell is subterrain—”_ Sherlock started to say, but John understood.

An underground cell. But how would he know?

One of the blue suited men secured Sherlock’s head while another forced the hose into his mouth, effectively killing his train of thought.

He could feel the horror within him, thrumming at the pace of his heart, feeling so violent in his chest it was as if it was trying to escape him. Escape the reality, the inevitable pain. He felt as it he was drowning right along with his Quartermaster, scarcely breathing, watching the other man’s body struggle for air. His heart was pounding impossibly harder, remembering, running. It had been here, recognized the scenario.

This wasn't the first time he had watched as water took a loved one, chased the air right out of their eyes.

He shut the memories and thoughts out even though they provided a distraction, provided a distraction from the current, continuing horror. A mantra flitted around in the back of his mind, a small comfort, the promise that he would shoot each and every one of these men dead with the weapon Sherlock had designed.

Besides that all he could do was watch, and wait, counting the seconds in his mind.

They relented at the two minute mark, releasing their arms on his upper body so Sherlock could only just twist around and heave, water darkening his purple shirt, dripping from his lips and his hair, shaken free like little crystals as he gasped for breath. John sagged in his seat, relieved only for the moment, praying to anyone that Sherlock would make it through. He would. He was Sherlock. He'd outlive god trying to have the last word, in no scenario would he ever die muted, unable to speak through the water pouring in.

All positive thoughts seemed to drain out of his mind the moment his friend was pushed down again, pixelated arms pinned on screen, sharp cheekbones struggling against the set of hands holding him still, forcing his mouth open, drowning him once more.

 

*****

 

Sherlock held out for five rounds, five rounds of struggling and a screaming body, of spewed water and gasps and far too many rough, strong hands binding him to the concrete floor. It was more than the average untrained man held out for, although his record was attributed more to his significant stubbornness rather than physical prowess.

He had counted for the first three rounds, concluding that they released him each time at around two minutes, pushing his limits, each time getting harder to maintain. By the fifth round he was exhausted, breathless since the first and tired of the entire mess. He would do it the sixth round he decided as he heaved the water from his body, taking in desperate gulps of air.

Soon, always too soon, they pushed him down again, the action familiar in a rather depressing way. He struggled less, focusing instead on the air, the precious oxygen, taking a particularly large breath just before the cold metal of the hose is forced down again.

The act started at the minute mark, half fake, half real, his eyes fluttering a bit more frequently, struggles weakening. He made small, not entirely fake, noises, muffled and desperate sounding, before going entirely limp. He took small, shallow, unnoticeable breaths. His eyes slid closes, head a lolling weight against the blue suit's hands. 

All the while he was counting the seconds, biding his time, praying for a miracle.

In all the events he had barely spared a thought to the fact that John was watching, that help , could be coming.  
Or, his cynical mind whispered, he could simply not care. After all, the mission had most definitely succeeded. What use was he now? There was Mycroft, but for his life he could never deduce the nature of his very own brother, only that he didn't seem to care for Sherlock much at all.

It took a total of ten seconds for the blue suits to realize that something was wrong, to notice that the man they were expressly told to _keep alive_ had fallen into one of the first stages of death. From his position of fake unconsciousness Sherlock listened, as the men threw aside the hose, it's spray of water dampening the remaining dry patches of his clothes. The restraining hands left his body, only those on his head remaining.

There were five men in the room.

Moriarty's minions spoke in panicked, harsh words, fear making them loud. It was obvious none of them had even the slightest knowledge of what to do, his neck was never felt for a pulse, eyelids never opened for pupil dilation. The ploy would only buy him a few minutes at best, but a few minutes was all Sherlock would need. The men were all armed, and that was what he was betting on.

The one who had kept his head in place, (right handed), lifted Sherlock up by his underarms before twisting him so the remaining water spilled from his mouth, as if that would help at all. Sherlock was a dead weight, arms dangling, eyes closed. 

He made his move in the other man's moment of distraction, while he was trying to shift his grip from Sherlock's shoulder to his torso. Sherlock's right arm, dangling lifelessly near the blue suit's hip, came to life, slipping the gun out of its holster. He contorted his wrist and fired, his aim calculated, a bullet in the heart.

He wrenched free of the dead man's grip and turned to the four men left, shooting two of them while they stood in shock, wide eyes gazing at the ceiling as they fell. The fourth and fifth reacted afterwards, guns trained on him before he could even shift aim. Sherlock breathed in slowly, eyes taking the situation in, data running in circles around his mind, creating plans that were wide and varied with only one consistency; they had him shot before either of the men were dead. 

Shot, not killed, but his chances of escape would drop to nigh on impossible with out aid. And he never bet on aid. 

The two men in front of him shifted aim, the fourth man aiming at his shoulder, the fifth man at his thigh. Sherlock aimed at the fourth man's head, smiling widely. "I'm ready to wager that I'm more important to your employer than you are, am I wrong?" 

"He needs you alive," the fifth said, his accent Irish, voice deep. Expected. "A bullet in the leg is still alive."

He could see it in his eyes, read it in the man's changing stance that he was about to shoot him. He was willing to let the fourth man die knowing than Sherlock would be down before he could kill him, effectively unable to walk, incapacitated by the pain. 

Sherlock would have shifted his aim to the dangerous fifth man, if only the fourth man wasn't willing to do the exact same thing.

This was problematic. Unable to find another course of action, he breathed in, ready to shoot on his exhale. 

He heard two guns go off when he breathed out, one emanating from his gun. Sherlock braced himself for the pain, for a bullet in his thigh, even as he turned to take aim at the fifth man.

Only, fifth man wasn't there, backed against the wall. He was crumpled on the floor right next to the fourth, a ghastly splash of red against the wall, trailing from his head, dripping down the plastic mask. Surprise gripped Sherlock like fear, making him blink at the scene in front of him through wet curls.

"You only left one?"

The voice was playful, worried, familiar. It was a voice he had sealed up in his mind palace, in a special place that had an uncanny resemblance to his living room, the door labeled John Watson and the place mat labeled home.

"Dear god. How inconsiderate of me." he replied, voice uncharacteristically shaky, an emotion he recognized as relief seeping into his cold bones. "Glad to see you, 007." 

Th other man lowered his gun a fraction, facial expression akin to an annoyed Mrs. Hudson. 

"I'm having none of that, Sherlock." John said, walking up to the taller man with an odd expression on his face. The distance might have been closer than appropriate, but Sherlock didn't feel the need to step back. He was less than a foot away from the shorter man now, able to see the bruises under his eyes, the slight unkemptness of his hair, fine blonde strands standing on end as if nervous hands had run through them multiple times. 

"You haven't slept," Sherlock stated quietly, eyes moving downward, to John's gun powder dusted fingers, his expensive leather shoes. 

"I've been missing you," John said, voice just as low. The statement made Sherlock's eyes jump back up, his light eyes searching dark blue ones in surprise. Perhaps he should have recognized the intent behind them, although it wasn't as if he disliked the outcome. 

John leaned up quickly, the kiss so brief it might have never happened. 

"We've got to move, Sherlock. Back up will be here soon." he murmured, eyes playful. John turned and went cautiously out the hallway, gun at the ready, leaving Sherlock stunned. His mind stalled, legs working only to follow the man in front of him, the lethal, wonderful, puzzling man...

He sank into his mind palace, turning the event that had just occurred over and over, trying to understand, committing it to memory. He emerged to John's faces, John's arms shaking his shoulders with a strong grip. He was saying something but Sherlock wasn't listening, wouldn't respond.

"Sherlock, _Sherlock_ , come on, back up is here." John's voice, slowly gaining volume, shakes him back to reality. He blinked, in control of his expression at once, data filtering in fast. He was standing inside a dark and dusty building, one of the many left to rot when the island was abandoned. Looking out the clear windows, glass long gone, he recognized the court yard he had observed through a tiny computer screen, still in bed and wrapped in his sheets. The video had been streamed live from the nose of a helicopter, one of the many that had come to rescue John after his stint with Silva. It looked the same, pile of rubble in the center looking like some sort of rough modern art sculpture. The persistent hum of what could only be the back up filled the air.

"You were saying something?" he asked, looking back from the windows, his normal petulance dimmed down. Probably due to the torture.

John laughed nervously, looking more relieved than nervous. The expression intrigued Sherlock, sparked a hint of confusion at the situation. "You do that," John observed, seeming as intrigued as he was. "Zone out somewhere..."

"I go to my mind palace." Sherlock answered, surprising himself. John, he realized, was the third person he'd ever told about the mind palace. The first had been his mother, the second had been a smug teenage Mycroft. What was he even doing? _What was happening to him?_

Whatever his expression revealed, it was enough for John to simply nod and look out into the courtyard. The noise of choppers grew ever louder, until he could see them hovering above, deploying ladders. Next to him John breathed out in relief, his face almost smiling as he grabbed Sherlock's hand and pulled him into the open space, gun out, signaling to the pilots above. 

"Need help?" John yelled over the roar of the helicopters.

Sherlock sent him a disparaging look and proceeded to hook his arm onto the rungs of the rope ladder, always climbing a good four rungs in front of John. He didn't know where the rumor had started, but he had no fear of planes.

Within a couple feet of the helicopters one of the agents reached over the edge and pulled him into the chopper, John following, both men reasonably breathless. Sherlock sank into the seats, hands mindlessly working to buckle himself. He felt another body settle next to him, John's face the picture of disbelieving relief. His hands were limp by his side, not even moving to buckle himself, left hand instead fumbling over to clasp Sherlock's right, squeezing as if trying to make sure Sherlock was really there. The idea left a warm, almost painful feeling in his chest.

"I'm sorry, John." he said, looking over John's tired face. 

John turned his head to face him, cheek pressed against the Kevlar seats, eyes murky. 

"What for?" he asked quietly.

"That whole Paris shooting. I had no idea my death would affect you so." he replied, honest, letting his thumb draw circles along the back of John's hand, watching the two limbs entwined, the warm feeling from before blooming.

When he looked back John was watching him with a wry smile and sad eyes. "Which death, then?" 

"Hmm?" Sherlock answered. confused. "Which one do you think, John, there was only—" the video stream. The water torture, he'd _seen._ "You watched that last bit?"

John nodded, mouth turning down as he remembered. "I flew in a on a jet that, well, it won't ever fly again I think. Moriarty hacked into my control screens and played it live. I landed right when it got to the good part, though a minute later the gunshots happened and I found you." 

"Well then I'm sorry for that too." Sherlock concedes, shivering slightly as he realized he was still covered in damp clothes, a thousand feet in the air. John seemed to realize at the same time.

"God, you must be freezing," he exclaimed, leaning out of his seat to ask one of the rescuing agents for a blanket. His hand never pulled away. When Sherlock was deemed appropriately bundled John settled down again and buckled, before promptly capturing Sherlock's hand again. There was no discussion about it, nor of the kiss before. If the two other agents within the cramped chopper gave them small glances it was of no consequence to Sherlock.

John broke the silence first. "You know, it's me who should apologizing."

"How so?"

"You saved my life doing that." John replied, making sure to catch Sherlock's eyes. They stared for longer than necessary, trying to get messages through the air. 

"You just saved mine," Sherlock pointed out as they both looked away. 

"We saved each other," John conceded, and for the first time in a while, Sherlock smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh mushiness.
> 
> Please leave feedback! :) I hope you liked it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading 
> 
> FEEDBACK IS Much LOVED <333
> 
> give me opinions  
> give me prompts  
> gimme


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